Practice Areas

Canada Considers Amendments to Trade Remedy System

Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg Trade Report

Canada’s Department of Finance has launched a public consultation on eight potential amendments to the Special Import Measures Act, the country’s primary trade remedy legislation. Interested parties may also raise other issues relevant to the administration of the trade remedy system. Comments are due by June 29.

The DOF states that significant changes have occurred in the global economy since Canadian trade remedy laws were last reviewed in 1996 and that it is therefore considering a focused set of potential changes to SIMA to help ensure that the trade remedy system continues to provide adequate remedies to domestic producers and to operate in a transparent and accessible manner. The following changes are therefore under consideration.

- amending SIMA to account for situations where prices or costs in the exporter’s home market may not be reliable for the calculation of normal values or where profit rates cannot be established on the basis of an exporter’s sales of the like good in the exporting market